


grimly thy shears

by Mattition



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: It's just like him not to even show up smh, Lonely Avatar Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, M/M, Mentioned Peter Lukas, POV Outsider, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), The Tundra Cargo Ship (The Magnus Archives), kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28021860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mattition/pseuds/Mattition
Summary: The family resemblance was overshadowed by That Look. All the Lukases had it, that void-where-a-person-should-be look. Some people were better off Like That.
Relationships: (IMPLIED), Peter Lukas/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 21
Kudos: 49





	grimly thy shears

**Author's Note:**

> CWs: lonely-typical imagery and talk. mentions of mental breaks, implied deaths, mentions of lonely-typical loss, feelings of abandonment, etc. I'm sure there's more, please feel free to tell me I've missed a tag or warning. 
> 
> Title is from [ Atropos](https://hellopoetry.com/poem/10216/atropos/) by John Myers O'Hara
> 
> This is a stealth sequel to my fic [ empty houses and empty rooms](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27305344), which is a lot more.. uh. cerebral. I like it a lot though and I think a lot about Lonely avatar Jon so. here's this.  
> The latter half of this is a statement, which means it's in 1st person. I've separated all the sections, so if that's not your cup of tea, go ahead and skip it.

In all his years on the Tundra, Henry has never seen Captain Lukas bring someone aboard. Sure, he’s allowed others…like him to ride the ship to their destinations, brought on new crew, things like that, but he’d never brought _someone_ aboard. And the diminutive man he had half-carried up the gangplank and bustled off into his office was certainly someone. Henry had been on his crew for a long time. He had always been a quiet, solitary sort and he was glad to find the Tundra, and he pretended he didn’t notice any disappearances, which seemed to be working out well enough for him. He actively didn’t notice things, so noticing the man was a shock to his system. He was short and dark skinned, with fluffy black hair in a real posh haircut. He was dressed in all black and had that look to him. Captain Lukas’ brother had been on the ship a few times, and for all that they were related, the family resemblance was overshadowed by That Look. All the Lukases had it, that void-where-a-person-should-be look. 

Or, rather, the kid didn’t have that look the first time he’d been on the ship; he’d looked kind of sick actually, clutching Captain Lukas like a life raft, face flushed, and eyes squeezed shut. When he’d come from the Captain’s quarters, he’d looked Like That. But he also looked... better. Henry had come to realize that some people were better off Like That, after so many years of meeting ‘people.’ It was his inclination to ignore any of the barmy shit that happened regarding the Captain’s strange friends, but you’d have to be blind or dumb as a post to not feel their wrongness. Henry had figured that sometimes things look like people but very much aren’t. It had saved his life more than once. 

The kid kept coming back, too. Henry isn’t sure about their relationship. Captain Lukas is in his fifties, though he’d been that way for years, which Henry refuses to think about. The kid can’t be older than 23. Even with his gauntness and smattering of grey hair, the kid was tiny, and his pretty, round face belied his youth. Henry had overheard him talking about how far Oxford was from London once, complaining at Captain Lukas, who had brushed him off and called him a little brat. The kid had pulled up in a new car the next time he came to meet the Captain at the docks. 

It was weird that the kid met the ship during the day. Then again, the Tundra rarely docked during the day. But there the kid was, huffing a cigarette as usual, face partially obscured by smoke and his scarf. Captain Lukas was no where to be found, and the kid’s eyes locked directly onto Chase, a chatty white guy who they’d picked up in a dockyard in Nova Scotia. Henry had been pretty confused that he hadn’t been…lost at sea, but now he sees why. The kid puts out his cigarette and disposes of it properly, fastidious, and saunters up to Chase, eyes wide and awed. The other crew duck out of his way; those who make it multiple voyages on the Tundra know by now to recognize the inherent danger in those the Captain socializes with. Henry is re-coiling rope nearby, so he can just hear their conversation. 

“Excuse me,”

“Oh! Hello, I didn’t see you there.” Chase looks him up and down, taking in his nicely cut coat, and cashmere scarf. “I’m Chase; Can I help you with something?”

“I was looking for your Captain,” His voice is flat. He does not offer his name. Chase’s smile dims a bit.

“I can show you to his office, but I’m not sure—”

“Your mother never wanted a child, you know,”

“w-what?”

“All those times when you were young and you questioned if she loved you, you were right to worry; she never wanted a kid, and she certainly wasn’t happy with the one she got. No one’s ever been happy with what they got when it comes to you, have they?”

“S-sorry, I don’t… Do I know you?”

“Does anyone really know you? Have you ever let any one in? Doesn’t it feel better just to close yourself off? That’s what helped you get through your tragic childhood with a mother who hated your very existence, hiding yourself away.”

“Yeah, I guess…”

“Would you like some help?” His voice is so _kind_ that it makes Henry shiver. Chase makes a mournful sound and nods. The kid smiles and reaches out and grabs something invisible in the air and Henry looks away, but he can hear the terrible ripping sound that rings through the dockyard. And he can hear Chase’s screams. He resolutely does not look. None of the other crew look either, nor do they go to his aid. They’d known within hours of his time onboard that Chase wasn’t going to last.

Chase’s screams peter out into silence eventually. 

“That was a bit dramatic, luv,” says Captain Lukas. The kid laughs, exhilarated. “What exactly was that?”

“I cut his strings,” his voice is an exalted breath, sounding almost high. 

“My very own Atropos.”

\--

Peter’s new pet is…interesting. Nathanial would never pretend to understand his brother, but he _does_ understand his impulse to make sure those on the edge of Becoming actually do so. And Jon Sims is mostly Become. When they first meet, Jon is huffing a cigarette on the balcony of the grand library. He’s not quite accustomed to strangers in the manor, but Jon, for all that he isn’t family, blends nicely. He wears muted colours and his dark, baleful eyes don’t so much meet others’ as look deep into them and find them wanting. Nathanial and Jon don’t greet each other. Jon just stares wistfully out into the moors and Nathanial assesses him. He finds the boy something approaching satisfactory, so he leaves. All of their first few interactions are like that.

One day Jon walks into the kitchen, where Nathanial is planning out the menu for the next week. There are a few servants working, but they haven’t acknowledged Nathanial the whole time he’s been in the kitchen, and they don’t acknowledge Jon as he comes in. He doesn’t acknowledge them either, just saunters his way over to the coffee bar and puts the kettle on. He pulls out a mug for himself, and then pauses, looking over the rack of mismatched mugs. The thing about the Lukas family is that they do actually encourage individuality—you can’t well be alone if everyone has something in common with you. The mug rack at the coffee bar has all sorts of varied sizes and shapes of mugs. Nathanial knows that Peter prefers the tall pale grey mug, and Jon apparently does as well, since his hand hovers over it for a moment before he smiles wickedly and choses a stubby, wide mug that Peter would hate. Nathanial nods to himself as he goes back to writing. Nothing more Lukas than pettiness. 

He does notice the new girl looking at Jon, however. She’d been brought on the month before, and still had to learn how to act in the Lukas house. She’s quiet enough, but not nearly smart enough to curb her curiosity. And Jon is a curiosity; handsome young man of color in a house full of older white people, of course he caught her eye, poor thing. She knows not to address the Lukases unless spoken to first, but Jon is not a Lukas. She makes her way over to him, one eye on her overseer, a silent, stern woman who has a face made for smiling, despite her adversity to the act. Her manager doesn’t acknowledge her, because she’s a smart woman. The girl edges closer to Jon, who ignores her steadily. 

“Hi, I’m Casey, are you new in the house?” Her voice, for how quiet it is, seems to ring through the kitchen. Jon takes a moment to look up at her. His face is blank when he does, dark eyes dull but still annoyed, somehow. 

“What.” He turns immediately back to the tea, making one mug to his apparent specifications, and making the other up for Peter, just to the side of his preferences. 

“Uh. I’ve never seen you around before?” She’s put off by him, regretting the interaction already. His voice is flat.

“ _You’re_ new.” 

“Yes, I just got hired last month,” 

“Allow me to advise you, Casey.” Says Jon, finally turning his full attention on her. She stiffens. “If you see someone in this house, you’re not worth their time. Speak when spoken to. Do your job. That’s it. Best way to avoid pain and suffering.” He quirks a cruel little grin and reaches out into mid-air, hooks a finger as if there’s something to grasp, and _yanks_. Casey yelps, stifles a scream, and starts sobbing. Jon scoffs in annoyance, gathers his teacups, and steps around her.

Nathanial is happy, for once, with one of Peter’s choices. 

\--

There’s a man smoking in the mouth of the alley. She hadn’t seen him at first, otherwise she’d have kept walking to the next bus stop, and damn the rain. But she’s here now, and she’s an anxious person, so she’d rather just wait the three minutes for her bus. She closes her brolly and shakes the water off of it. She scrolls through twitter, checks the transit app. One minute away.

She glances at the man from the corner of her eye. He’s not doing anything threatening, just smoking, and periodically checking his watch. It’s dark, of course, but even in the dark and from afar, she can see it is a nice one, shiny and silver. As she watches, he stubs out a finished cigarette, fishes another out of his chest pocket, and lights it with a heavy-looking gold lighter. He turns his head slightly, and they make eye contact. The bus whizzes by, spraying her with dirty gutter water, not even pausing, though she is obviously standing there in the little bus shelter, lit by the dying fluorescents. She traps a frustrated scream behind her teeth.

The man winces theatrically at her plight.

She gives him a dirty look. He takes a huff of smoke. She’s not sure what possesses her to speak to him, but she does, squinting through the rain and smoke to try and make out his face properly.

“Don’t you know those things will kill you?” He hums, considering the cigarette in his hand like Hamlet and the skull. 

“How fast, do you think?”

“Er. What?”

“How long will it take?”

“T-to kill you?”

“Yes.” He steps closer. “How long did it take your father? Though I suppose he combined them with the drink,”

“You don’t know anything about my father!” The man steps even closer, close enough that his smoke cloud begins to engulf her. “He did the best he could,”

“Oh, Samantha, you know that’s not true.” His voice is almost kind. “Your poor father did what he wanted. He didn’t take you into account at all, did he?”

“I-I… get away from me!”

“You want to be alone.”

“Yes,”

“I can make that happen, Samantha, just give me a moment.” He sticks the cigarette between his teeth, white and square. Even as the sense of danger tingles down her sides, she wonders how his teeth are so nice if he regularly chain-smokes in dark alleys and gets into peoples’ faces. His eyes, when they come into focus, are glowing slightly, grey and dull. They look dead, and she tries to take a step back, but she’s rooted to the spot as fog roils around her feet. He raises his hands and threads them carefully through the air. She feels little tugs in her chest as he hums contentedly and weaves his hands like he’s creating a cat’s cradle. She feels a bit nauseous, and her vision goes a bit wonky; she can swear she can see glowing cords held taut between his slim hands. He smiles benevolently and whips his hands swiftly downwards. A terrible noise rends the air and she can’t stifle her scream. It _hurts_ so much, that she can barely tell where she is anymore.

Once, when she was about 12, her father took her fishing. They’d sat in a dinky little canoe and sat for hours in the sun, rare as it was. It had been wonderful, one of her favorite memories. She’d tried to recreate the joy she’d felt that day last spring, gone out to a nearby lake with her busted old fishing pole, and she’d ended up capsized, panicking under the harsh, cold water. This feels a bit like that. She’s lost the way up; the surface feels like a myth, and she knows there’s some trick to find it, something to do with bubbles, but her frantic mind is knocking stuff over in it’s frantic thrashing. There is a loud ringing sound reverberating through her ears. Vaguely, as if from a great distance, she hears the man’s voice, posh and uppity, smooth and contented.

“No need to thank me, Samantha,”

\--

“Statement of Ace Tracy, regarding his acquaintance’s mysterious benefactor. Given 15th November, 2010. Recording by Sasha James, 3rd February 2015. Statement begins.

“I’m not the most observant of people, I’ll admit that freely. I do alright most of the time, but I always forget anniversaries and birthdays, and I’ve been nearly run over more times than I’d like to think about. But I have a really good mind for people. Faces, specifically, I have really good recall for faces. And I notice when things are off with them. Which is why I noticed the changes in Jon. Jon Sims, that is. We were in the same year and the same degree track, so we saw each other pretty often. We weren’t close friends; I’m pretty sure he actively resisted making friends. He’d had a girlfriend for almost a year, Georgie, she’s pretty cool, super likeable, so we were all a bit confused about their relationship. Jon was a wanker most of the time, really. He was snippy on the best of days, and as cold fish as it’s possible to get. He and Georgie had had a great row a little before I noticed the changes. I went to her when I noticed, of course; I just wanted to know what was going on with him. As I said, I’m not real observant, so when I do notice something, I want to know all about it. Georgie told me that she was worried about him, that he’d accused her of crazy, impossible things, and stopped answering any of her attempts to contact him. 

“But I’m a little out of order, I realize. Jon. He sat a row ahead of me in one of our literature classes, a little off to the side, so I could see his face if I wanted. As anti-social as he was, you’d think he’d be the type to sit in the back of a class and carve shit into the desks, but he was usually right there in front, taking notes, fidgeting with a loose cigarette. He smoked like a fucking chimney, too; as soon as the professor would release us for the day, he’d have a loosie stuck in his mouth and his lighter in his hand as he left the lecture hall or classroom. Maybe the weirdest thing about him was how _little_ he smelled of smoke. He usually smelled a bit like salt, in a pleasant way. Like there was nothing remarkable about him at all. He was a smart guy in a school full of smart people. He was handsome in his way, maybe a more accurate way to describe him would be ‘interesting.’ I guess I’m talking like he’s dead. I don’t think he is, but I think that maybe he’d be better off like that. It was a couple weeks after he and Georgie broke up, and he’d missed the previous class. And that wouldn’t be too weird, except Jon was the type to come to class even if he was actively bleeding out. He never missed, and he certainly didn’t skip. But he’d missed the Tuesday, and on Thursday in class, there was something…off about him. He looked his usual self, posh haircut slightly grown out and unkempt, dark shadows below his eyes, professional clothes. He just sat down and pulled out his reader and a notebook, looking for all the world like he was ready to take attentive notes in class. Clearly, no one else thought anything was off, but. I did. He didn’t look different; he just _was_ different. And not like it wasn’t him; it was 100% him. There was this air about him that made him somehow less approachable, like he was dangerous somehow. And…he looked healthy. Such an odd thing to be concerned about, but it was out of character for him, he always used to look one bad day away from the grave.

“Then he looked at me. And I…felt like I was dying. It felt like I had lost everything, like I’d found out that my whole family was dead, lost my friends, lost my job, all those things all at the same time and it was tearing me apart and I don’t know if I was screaming or crying or what, but it was all there and then it was gone, like it had never happened. And Jon just. He smiled at me and nodded, tipped an imaginary hat, you know? I just knew that whatever had happened to him, whatever he had done, it was bad, evil. I avoided him from then, he was easy to avoid anyway, but it was just…if there was any chance that he’d actually do the job, kill all the people in life I cared about, whatever his power actually was, I didn’t want to test my luck. 

“I would see him around, though, no matter how hard I tried, we were still in the same degree program, and, well, the English department at Oxford hasn’t got _too_ too many people in it. He seemed to have a newfound hobby in talking to people. He would be chatting up this or that person, and at first I kind of thought he was just sleeping around, trying to get over Georgie or whatever. I was trying really hard to ignore whatever had happened between us that day, which was maybe stupid. There was this one postgrad that I saw him talk to one day, who had a breakdown the next day, went absolutely mental, crying all over; she was completely inconsolable from what I heard, and, thinking back on it now, I’m reasonably certain Jon’s the one that caused it. I can’t be sure, obviously, but that last bit after he changed, a lot of people had breakdowns, more than usual, I looked at some stats. 

“I didn’t ever try to get in his way, though. I’ll admit I was a bit scared. I didn’t want to be the next person to go off the deep end. And sometimes, I would see him with this guy, tall and pale, he looked a bit like a cartoon ship captain, if I’m being honest. And he was _not_ a student or professor. He did not belong on that campus, even when he was around Jon. Whatever evil shite Jon was getting up to, that guy was in on it. He had this look about him… not smug, because that would mean he cared what you thought, but something approaching it. He was wealthy, too. Not just rich, ‘cause that wasn’t really odd round up there, he must have been old money, you know? Even though he was dressed like that, he still just…he walked with that kind of presence, the kind where you just know they could smite you down for looking at them wrong. Jon didn’t have that, even after he got weird. He was just creepier, worse to be around overall. The guy would be gone for long periods of time, though, and Jon got downright vicious then. I saw it, once, what he would do to them.

“I’d had a paper due the next morning, so that night, I’d been in the library late. On my way back to my dorm, I saw him talking with one of the worse professors. I can’t recall his name now, but it was kind of an open secret that he would harass students, come onto them, or make racist comments, or the like. He was an arse on top of that, but he had tenure, so none of us could really do anything. 

“Well, none of us except Jon. And I don’t support the…bad stuff, whatever fucked up supernatural mafia he’s got himself into, but this professor, he was a right wanker, right? And Jon has whatever his fucked up shite is, so I… I wanted to see. What he’d do to him. They talked for a while, and I didn’t want to get close enough to hear, but the professor looked annoyed and he was talking at Jon. I figure he must have been chewing him out for stopping him or some bull like that. But Jon looked calm, serene, even, cigarette in the corner of his mouth as he just stared at the prof. And then he just, he took a pair of scissors out of his coat. They were old looking, glittering gold, but kind of rusted, and viciously sharp. I think the professor finally noticed something was off with Jon because he stopped talking and stepped away. Jon didn’t attack him, anyway, he just swiped his scissors through the air and snipped them closed. It wasn’t threatening, either. He was almost in his own little world about it, completely disregarding the professor. And I don’t know what kind of magic shit he did, because the look on the professor’s face. It was exactly how I’d felt when Jon looked at me. Jon just smiled at him and left, and the professor, whatever his name was, just sat down, right there on the dirty pavement

“I never saw him again. I can’t remember his name. Or his face. God. 

“We graduated last spring and he disappeared from the face of the planet. Not that I was looking for him, but I did notice that he didn’t have any family attend the ceremony. There was that man. He was wearing a woolen sweater and a heavy peacoat, which I thought was creepy since it was May. He was there for Jon. He had the same look to him, somehow. Sickly, but still healthy. Like he was living his best life, and that life just happened not to include sleeping ever. I was close enough to hear them when they finally spoke to each other. The guy clapped Jon on the shoulder, hard enough to send him stumbling, and said, “Useless degree, Atropos.” He had a friendly, airy voice, like he really didn’t care either way how you’d take what he had to say, and he kind of hoped you’d take it wrong and feel bad about it. Jon called him a belland or something, and they went off together. No one I know of has heard from him since, and honestly? I hope I never do.”

“Statement ends. 

“Archival Notes: Not a lot here, really. I had Tim do some research on this guy, Jon Sims. It looks like he graduated from Oxford with high honors, and disappeared off the face of the earth. I have a file here from his childhood. It looks like he tried to run away a few times, though he insisted he wasn’t. Hmm. A noise complaint from January of 2009. Looks like it’s about Sims’ and this ‘Georgie’ person’s row. I’ll add some written notes to this file. I just wanted to note that name, Atropos. That’s one of the Greek fates, from our research. The one who cuts the strings. If cutting the string of fate doesn’t kill people, I wonder what it actually is that Sims does. We’ll mark this one as a potential threat and start up a file for him. End notes.”


End file.
